Knowing how to truly analyze contribution data and track the cash flow to campaigns is becoming as essential to basic election coverage as having candidates' home phone numbers.
Almost any serious candidate - for state races as well - are keeping their contributions in a database. Journalists without the data analysis skills to pore over these records are left to report the view of a candidate or political watchdog groups.
Hence the mission of the campaign finance project at IRE and NICAR: to quickly spread the data-crunching skills specific to covering federal, state and local elections.
In August, the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation awarded IRE and NICAR a 16-month grant to accomplish this plan. Here's how we're doing it and how you can help.
We're planning a series of two-day hands-on computer-assisted reporting workshops starting in January located at the state capitols in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Each campaign finance seminar will be specific to its location. For example, the training exercises at an Illinois seminar will use the most recent Illinois campaign finance data. Reporters will also learn the caveats of working with federal data, including which resources are the most useful, as well as how each organization (Center for Responsive Politics, Public Disclosure, Inc., Federal Elections Commission) massages the data.
We're looking to train with data from the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute of Money in State Politics, which each offer databases with contributor names coded by occupation, employer or industry.
Each tailored seminar will feature that area's experts in campaign finance laws and data. The experts will come from state elections boards as well as local political watchdog groups. These panelists will give reporters a chance to interact with those who built the databases and work with the data.
The hands-on classes will include exercises in:
spreadsheets, databases, and mapping
importing campaign finance data from the Web and other file types into both spreadsheet and database formats
joining relational databases
performing enterprise joins, including how to match campaign finance databases to state contract databases
In addition to the data-crunching lessons, reporters will also learn how to spot the latest loopholes in campaign finance laws that politicians are using to raise more money. These loopholes include the ever-increasing practice of transferring soft money donations from national parties to state parties.
For each of these workshops we are looking for reporters who want to help with organizing, promotion and training or coaching the hands-on computer-assisted classes.
If you're interested in helping out or can offer suggestions on programming please contact us at the Campaign Finance Information Center (573) 882-1982 or cficcomments@ire.org.
We are planning the first set of money in politics workshop being offered by IRE and NICAR. Here are the locations and months that are tentatively scheduled:
Lansing, Mich. January Columbus, Ohio February Springfield, Ill. February Indianapolis, Ind. March Madison, Wis. March Minneapolis, Minn. April
Please watch for more details on our Web Site at campaignfinance.org/seminars.html
Cindy Eberting can be reached by e-mail at cindy@nicar.org